


Zer0 Degrees Celsius

by SnowDroppp



Category: Lego Ninjago
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Gen, They all do tbh, Zane (Ninjago) needs a hug, elemental powers, he needs therapy, not my prompt, please get my mans some help, zangst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-17
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-12 03:53:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29503701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SnowDroppp/pseuds/SnowDroppp
Summary: Based off of @spinchip ‘s concept and art of Zane and Nya having a mental link due to their elements being similar_________________It was never meant to be a thing but... it ended up becoming something.“Zane.. what number am I thinking of? Out of every number ever, what number am I thinking of?”The nindroid opens his eyes, releasing himself from his attempted meditative state just to smile. “Forty-one thousand three hundred and.. fifty-two.”
Comments: 12
Kudos: 58





	1. Game Night

**Author's Note:**

> Hey lovelies! This is my first fic on this Ao3 account so if you enjoy please drop a kudos and a comment!
> 
> I saw this concept and ran with it honestly because mental links are just *chefs kiss*
> 
> I’d also like to thank Spinchip because their ideas and art continue to feed my need for more Zane content
> 
> Anyways! Enjoy the fic!

It was never meant to be a thing but... it ended up becoming something.

“Zane.. what number am I thinking of? Out of every number ever, what number am I thinking of?”

The nindroid opens his eyes, releasing himself from his attempted meditative state just to smile. “Forty-one thousand three hundred and.. fifty-two.”

Jay chuckles from his splayed position on the couch. “Dude there is literally no way you could have guessed that. I know you’re like… made of ones and zeroes but that’s basically impossible.”

Nya rolls her eyes. “Well, he’s actually right.”

That’s what moves Jay to look up from his phone, only so he can glance between his girlfriend and the nindroid. “Is this about you guys’ weird ‘elemental link’ thingy? Cause that’s cheating.”

Zane closes his eyes once more, but continues to smirk. “Or maybe I am just good at guessing?”

Jay huffs out a half-laugh and goes back to scrolling through Ninja-Gram.

Nya smiles at the two and leans her head back against the couch in an attempt to relax as the conversation ends in a comfortable silence. Zane’s calming energy helps, but she still just can’t quite put her mind at ease. So, she just starts thinking.

Her and Zane’s elemental link was honestly a very… sudden development.

It had been subtle at first. Starting with only a few incidents of accidentally saying the same thing at the same time, then a few of their movements started to look a little similar, then suddenly they could fight together without flaw, and then before they knew it Nya could know what Zane was making for dinner before he even entered the kitchen. Then one day they could feel each other’s emotions. The last one had came as quite a shock... literally.

The mission that they’d discovered their new power on had been a normal one, but only Zane and Nya went because it was some kind of fire at an abandoned warehouse. One thing had lead to the other, the mechanic showed up, and Zane had been taken down.

When one of the mechanic’s goons had stuck the taser against Zane’s side, she’d felt… something, even though they were on complete opposite sides of the burnt warehouse. As soon as it had hit his side she’d felt a jolt in her mind. And suddenly she could feel the disconnect as his mind went blank. Before he’d passed out she’d felt his surprise, his concern for her well being, and his downright fear.

Everything had worked out and Zane eventually came back around, but after that they knew something had changed.

The only way to explain it would be to compare it to adjoining apartments. The apartments are separate, their own small homes. Though, they are always connected with only a door separating them… that’s only kept closed by a cheap, broken lock.

They’d both decided to tell the team after that mission and it was, luckily, received well by all. Nya had been a little concerned for Jay’s reaction but he had actually taken it really well.

“...ya? Nya, you there?”

The water Ninja lifts her head and blinks herself out of her thoughts. “Sorry uh, what’s up?”

Kai, who had entered the room at some point, gives her an amused snort. “Just wanted to know if you were down for game night tonight? Cole is convinced he needs to beat Zane at poker.”

Zane opts to only open one eye with a smirk. “So I will be keeping my title as poker champion tonight?”

Nya chuckles and sends him somewhat of a mental fist bump. “Sure, I can’t play anyways due to… actually is using an elemental link technically cheating?”

That’s when Cole decides to walk by the door with a mouth full of cake as he mumbles out an angry, “YEMSH!”

The four ninja chuckle as they all move to make their way into the kitchen. The light, airy vibe following them into the hallway as Kai tries to mess up Jay’s hair and the lightning ninja takes off sprinting into the kitchen, narrowly missing Cole along the way. Nya, who was too focused on her brother and boyfriend, playfully yelps as a gentle metallic hand ends up in her hair, messing up her tight ponytail.

When Nya turns to Zane with a smile she can tell he’s playing clueless nindroid by his barely contained smirk. “Is that not what you are supposed to do to a sibling who is shorter than you?”

Things might be different with this odd power of theirs, but if she could make this moment of peace and happiness last forever, she would.

“Whatever, and I am NOT short!”


	2. The Never Realm

So far, the Never Realm sucks. 

First they crash-land, then the land bounty goes over a cliff and they lose the travelers tea, then they have to climb down a mountain in sub-zero temps without any cold gear, are chased by wolves, and then just happen to find a bunch of frozen people in the middle of the woods. 

Great.

Fantastic.

Just how Nya wanted to spend her Friday afternoon.

It might not even be Friday here for all she knows. This new realm is… odd. Ever since they passed through the portal she’s felt a little, off-put? She supposes.

Nya places a gloved hand on the ice block in front of her with a sigh, trying to look for any sign of life in the frozen woman. The ice feels… strange, familiar but… not? She tries to focus a little harder, pushing her power to try and connect with its sibling element, but feels nothing. She takes her hand off with a relieved, but disappointed sigh as she senses the woman’s heart beat. “I can hear a heartbeat. It’s faint but… I wonder how they got like this?”

Cole tries using his super strength to break through the ice, but it doesn’t even splinter. The black ninja, shaking his hand in pain as if rebounds off the ice.

Nya turns to ask about the frozen people once again, but the tracker in her pocket suddenly beeps. She pulls out the small pad, a small smile stretching across her face as she frantically taps at the little device. “Lloyd, I just picked up a faint signal from the mech!”

Cole rubs at his bare arms with a slight shiver. “Where?”

Nya checks the pad one last time and points to her right. “That way, due-east.”

The others spend a few moments bickering over leaving the frozen people behind, but Nya tunes out for a moment. She hadn’t tried reaching Zane yet, didn’t know if she even could. Still, she takes a breath and mentally reaches out to the ice master.

‘ZANE? ZANE CAN YOU HEAR ME? WE’RE HERE FOR YOU AND THE STAFF. WE NEED TO KNOW WHERE YOU ARE.’

It’s as if the adjoined apartment door is locked and a chair is propped under the handle. She can tell nothing is getting through, he would have responded if it had. Maybe… they’re just too far away? Yeah. Yeah that’s most likely it.

Nya sighs and returns to the conversation as Lloyd lectures Jay about not knowing enough about whatever is going on with the frozen people. “We need to keep moving. It’s going to be dark soon and we’re in a brand new realm. We can come back to help once we know more about the situation. Plus, if you haven't noticed, we aren’t exactly equipped with cold gear so the sooner we find shelter the better.”

Jay pauses for a moment, maybe to let the message sink in or maybe because of his nerves, but he quickly returns with a nod.

Nya smiles and takes her boyfriend's hand in her own as the team begins to walk east. They have a long journey ahead and with her being unable to contact Zane, things look a little bleak. 

What she wouldn’t give to go back to game-night...


	3. Connections

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nya finally connects with Zane

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hahaha  
> *boops you*  
> Have some angst
> 
> (P.s. if the end seems a bit rushed it was :p)

“Come! Come! Warm yourselves!”

Nya had never been more grateful to see a campfire in all of her life. She plops herself next to her brother on one of the pelts on the floor, sticking her hands as close to the fire as she can without burning them. The warmth slowly returning to her fingers makes her sigh, but she can’t get comfortable yet. Not when she doesn’t know who they’re in the presence of. “So, if you don’t mind me asking, who are you? What is this place?”

The older woman smiles at her and goes into a short retelling of the story of her people. Nya is only really half listening, but a sense of dread starts creeping into her stomach when Sorla asks Lloyd where they are from. She gives him a side glance that screams, “caution”. Though Lloyd, being the optimist that he is, opts to tell her the truth. She, personally, wouldn’t have told these random people that they just met that they were from another realm and had little to no resources and are down a man but who is she to question Lloyd’s judgment. After a few gasps from the villagers that rescued them and a brief retelling of the ninja’s story, Sorla frowns at the mention of Zane.

“Oh no, we haven’t had visitors for a long time. We’re the last tribe on the ice. It grows too cold, too thick.”

They each sigh at the news, but Sorla has a small smile on her face as she grabs a small jar of spices and some herbs, asking one last time for Zane’s name and where he hails from. Nya rubs her arm, a nervous habit she’d picked up from Zane soon after they’d discovered their link, as the older woman tosses a handful of her spices and herbs into the fire. The flames immediately erupt into green spirals of fire as it changes and grows into a picture that gets clearer and clearer by the second as the smoke dissipates. Nya leans in to try and get a better look, then something deep in her soul shatters.

Nya stares at the temple formed by the flames with wide-eyes and the sense of dread that had been pooling in her stomach overflows and begins flooding her entire being. She rubs at her arm a little harder than intended, which is exactly what Zane did when overwhelmed but frankly, he had metal skin and couldn’t rub it raw. A sudden sense of panic hits her before her vision suddenly fills with static, she can faintly hear Kai call her name, then everything goes black. 

Then she’s drifting. She knows she, as in her body, isn’t actually drifting. It’s whatever her mind can create to serve as her apparition. She’s never truly understood how it works, but she knows she’s okay. She knows she’s in her own mind.

Then she falls. 

There’s no wind to whip at her face and in reality there’s no gravity so it’s less of a fall and more of a float? That is, until she hits something solid. Probably. She isn’t sure if solid is a thing in the mindscape.

Everything is dark and all she knows is there’s a floor that’s wooden (??) underneath her feet and a faint smell of peppermint and seasalt intermingling. Like two candles lit in separate rooms but the scents tangle together. 

Then it hits her. She must be in the apparition of the little adjoining apartment… probably?

Her mind feels… blank, yet she’s still present enough to see and to feel but she can’t… see or feel? It doesn’t make sense but hell, it never did. So she reaches out blindly for something, anything. She’s mostly looking for a door, a handle. One that leads to Zane preferably,but the lights in the apartment are off and she’s just grasping for some invisible doorknob that may or may not exist in mid-air. Though, her hand finally hits something metallic. But just as she finds the metaphorical doorknob and wraps her fingers around it to pull it open and the lights in the apartment turn on as her mind creates the mental (physical?) depiction of a door, something stabs into her being.

It isn’t like any pain she’s felt before. No headache, migraine, or djin-mind-control could ever compare to the repeated stabbing that assaults her brain. It’s as if someone took a blade, froze it over then thrust it into her psyche.

The pain is cold, unforgiving… and yet so familiar. She reaches for the door once more and tries to rotate the handle a final time, but is forced to let go once the pain finally overwhelms her. Her forearm contracts and squeezes as the cold continues to crawl up her arm, seemingly through her veins like some kind of poison. Nya cradles it close to her chest as tears form, but can’t give up on trying. She looks at the door one last time, praying to the First Spinjitzu Master for any kind of sign. Anything.

Then she hears it.

The banging.

Someone… no, no, Zane is banging on the door. There’s a faint blue light pulsing on the other side of the door. Nya moves closer and places a hand on the wooden part of the door. HEart breaking as she listens to his mental apparition screaming, crying, freezing the door over with each pound from the other side. She tries to call out to him but can’t seem to get any words to leave her mouth.

Then suddenly everything is muffled and static-y and Nya can hardly focus but… she knows she needs to do something. She can’t leave knowing Zane is suffering. She can’t leave knowing he’s in pain.

Then just as she moves to reach back for the door, just as she can finally make out his voice on the other side of the door, just as she can finally make out his pained gasps of “help” and “let go”, she’s yanked back into reality.

Waking up in reality again isn’t painful or sudden or even scary it’s just… she was gone and then wasn’t.

Warm hands on her shoulders bring her out of her trance with a short gasp. The amber eyes in front of her, clearly Kai’s, furrow with worry. She lets him help her to sit up as her eyes readjust to the room, but before he can say a word she’s already pushing herself to her feet with a new determination. He tries to grab her hand but she flakes him off.

“Nya! Hey, come on, sit down you just passed out. The crash was bad and we didn’t check over injuries properly so let us figure out-“

She waves off her brother’s concerns once again and instead strides across the room only to stop dead in front of the fire so she faces everyone in the room. She waits until she catches the attention of everyone, which she hadn’t known she already had by passing out in the first place. She clears her throat, asserting her teammates, her family, with a new determination.

“Zane is alive, and he’s here in the Never Realm.” She pauses, gauging her family’s reactions before continuing. Their responses vary. Kai looks hopeful, they all do. Every one of the boys has a look in their eye because dammit if Zane is alive that’s worth something. They’ve been in this situation before and they’ll get out of it again. But that hopeful glimmer quickly turns to a smoldering glint of faith as she continues. “But… he’s in that temple and he’s… he’s not okay. Very, very not okay...”

The room is silent as she stands there, awkwardly looking only towards the faces of her family even though she’d basically addressed the entire room. She lightly huffs at her feelings of awkwardness, wanting to step away but standing there for the sake of Zane being helped. She wasn’t sure who was going to speak up first, but she hadn’t expected it to be Cole.

“What do you mean by… not okay? Is he like, hurt or a prisoner or scared or-”

“No, no he’s…”, Nya pauses because she doesn’t know. She knows he’s in pain though, and scared, and by the look of things he’s most likely a prisoner (even if it’s just in his own mind), so she answers honestly. “He’s all of those things and, probably more but… but I don’t know. I just know he’s in excruciating pain. I tried to reach him through our link and when I saw the temple in the fire I finally got through to him but he’s… something is very wrong. And we need to get to him as fast as possible. We have to rescue Zane.”

The others voice their agreement and turn to begin to talk amongst themselves to create some sort of plan. Nya moves to join them but pauses as a thickly gloved hand lands on her shoulder. She turns, expecting Sorla, but instead finds it to be one of the men that had rescued them from the wolves.

“You cannot seriously be planning to go rescue your friend, it would be a suicide mission.”

Nya blinks, processing what the man had said for a moment, ignoring the slowly building pressure behind her eyes, before sending him a glare. “Not rescue our friend? Are you serious?”

The man nods, he’s serious. “That temple is the home of The Ice Emperor. A tyrant that has ruled over these lands for decades with his corrupt ice powers and blizzard samurai. I am sorry to say but your friend is gone.”

Nya shoots him a venom-filled sneer, ripping her shoulder from the man’s grasp as she squares up to him and reaches her full height. She just barely looms over the man, but she can tell he’s intimidated. The pressure behind her eyes is throbbing but she continues to ignore it as she roughly puts a finger to his chest. “No, he isn’t. Zane is still alive and that is what matters. He’s less friend than he is family and if we leave him behind not a single one of us would ever forgive ourselves. And this Ice Emperor guy? I can guarantee you we’ve fought tougher.” Nya extends her hand to her side, water from a few nearby canteens shooting to her aide. “And if you suggest one more time that we leave him behind, so help me First Spinjitzu Master, I will make you regret the day you were-”

“Nya what are you-”

Someone grabs her hand. She blindly reacts, the throbbing behind her eyes intensifying as she flips the attacker over her shoulder with a grunt and tosses them into the wall. She turns expecting another enemy, but meets her brother’s eyes instead. It takes a moment, but the pressure suddenly disperses and her hands fly to her mouth.

“Nya what- what in the underworld?! You just threw Jay into a wall!” Kai says as he rushes over to grab her hands away from her face. He looks at her for a moment, eyes scanning her in worry before his shoulders finally rollback with a sigh and he raises a hand to the side of her face. “Is it… is it a link thing? Is something happening with Zane?”

The water ninja feels frozen, figuratively and literally. She numbly nods as her brother pulls her into a hug. Even though heat radiates off of him like a roaring fire, all Nya can feel is cold. The ice from her mindscape creeping up her arms through her veins. She knows this is stemming from the link and of course Zane is cold... but this isn’t Zane’s kind of cold. This kind of cold is bitter and biting where Zane’s is nurturing and healing. This isn’t Zane’s kind of cold, not his kind of ice.

Nya smiles lighty as Jay replaces Kai, assuring her that he’s fine. But she can’t shake the cold feeling that’s finally made its way to her chest. Things are… far from okay. If she could just curl up in Jay’s arms and shut out the world for the rest of her life, she would. Because FSM is she tired. Her bones ache as if they haven’t been used in years. A bed sounds like the nicest thing she could ever have. But she has a brother to save, and she won’t rest until he’s safe. So she gently pulls away from Jay and makes her way over to the others as Kai finishes explaining what happened to Sorla. She doesn’t catch her teammates or the older woman’s worried glances as she stops just outside of their little half circle, instead looking only at Lloyd.

“We need a plan. We’re getting him back, no matter what.”


End file.
